Visio Institut is an independent public policy think tank in Slovenia. Aiming for open, free, fair and developed Slovenia, the Visio Institut is publishing a ray of publications, while Visio scholars regularly appear in media and at public events.

Unsurprisingly, among the countries with the most substantial deteriorations in freedom in recent years are Turkey and Poland, both experiencing evident weakening of the rule of law, contracting religious freedom, and attacks on freedom of expression.

The last couple of years have seen the citizens of several CEE countries witness the erosion of hard-earned liberalism, while privately and publicly weighing on how to prevent populists in power from further trampling citizen’s freedoms and rights.

Past week, the Economic Freedom of the World: 2018 Annual Report was released. The report is based on data from 2016 and measures the economic freedom by analyzing the policies and institutions of 162 countries and territories.

This paper aims to explore the history, structure, and economic consequences of the currency board in Bulgaria, which was introduced as an emergency measure to combat the late-nineties economic crisis, though has stayed in place ever since.

Measured with the Economic Freedom of the World ratings framework, Slovenia’s situation in 2015 was inferior, relative to 1995, in several areas. Notably, regarding government consumption, private sector credit, the legal system, and property rights.

On Sunday, June 3, the Slovenes voted in the snap parliamentary election. Nine political parties passed a minimum 4% threshold to gain representation in the National Assembly, a record in Slovenia’s history. The winner was the Social Democratic Party (SDS) with 24,94% of the vote.

The Visio institute has just published the second issue of The Visio Journal, which offers several papers analyzing the degree to which the public policies and political institutions of former socialist economies have been supportive of economic freedom following the collapse of communism.

Because of the binding constraints of European treaties and EU law, there are few remaining lines of attack against the Bank of Slovenia’s independence. This article places these developments within the normative and positive contexts of free markets.

December 1, 2017, marked the five-year anniversary of the full implementation of plain packaging in Australia. The removal of brands and trademarks from packaging remains a gross violation of intellectual property rights and has failed to achieve its intended goal.

Using 79 distinct indicators to evaluate freedom in 159 countries, the Human Freedom Index captures the degree to which people are free to enjoy rights such as freedom of expression, religion, assembly, movement, trade, identity, relationships, as well as measures the rule of law, security and safety.